Nutpicking is the fallacious tactic of picking out and showcasing the nuttiest member(s) of a group as the best representative(s) of that group – hence, “picking the nut”. It’s cherry picking a poor representative of the group – almost a straw man – to use as ad hominem against the group.
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What I’ve heard is that when the infant mortality rate was higher, children weren’t named immediately, as an attempt to not get too attached to a child that might die in infancy.
But I can’t imagine that they weren’t cared about as much.
Then again, there’s a lot of things about that time that I can’t imagine, so that’s hardly definitive proof of anything.
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Steve Bannon’s Government Accountability Institute filed an amended Form 990 for 2014 recently. It’s a nice $100K gig for him, added to his other stuff. Most of the money is probably funneled via Rebekah Mercer.
They’re really lagging in filing. Even Scientology is getting caught up with their 2015 Form 990s by now. Try not to laugh too much at the stated company purpose on the 990s.
Some families would just keep using the same name repeatedly until one of the children survived. So you see those old family bibles sometimes with two or three tries at “Peter Fears-God Smith” or whatever.
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Excellent. Pray, what is the word for “taking a light exaggeration meant in jest as a serious debating point, and discussing it as such?”
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Irritation at having heard it several times before and seeing people on the right take it seriously.
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I hate to say it, but I think this is one of those popular misconceptions about history. I don’t think it’s that people cared LESS about their children (some did surely, but that’s true today, as well - that’s what happens when people have children who don’t necessarily want them or know how to navigate the world themselves - some do well, some don’t); rather it’s that people had a stronger familiarity with death, because it wasn’t sanitized and outsourced the way it is today. I’ve met people who won’t take their children to funerals, because they fear it will traumatize them! But death is a natural part of life. When you deal with it more directly (have the dying in your home, dress the body your self for the funeral services, hold wakes in your house instead of at a funeral home), it is no longer unfamiliar, even if it brings pain in the process.
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